Our survival depends on fighting climate changehttps://www.hcn.org/wotr/our-survival-depends-on-fighting-climate-change
Stopping global climate change requires an effort that’s the moral equivalent of war.I am 88 and have seen a lot of change over the decades, but I do not think anyone living now has ever faced a more serious threat to life than the threat of global climate change. As President Obama said recently, “More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future.”

I come from a far different time. Born in a coal-mining town, I was raised on a ranch five miles out of Lander, Wyo., just two miles from where my mother was born, in 1901. I went to one-room schools and graduated from Lander High School at 18, just in time to become gun fodder for World War II.

My crew of 10 young men flew a B-24 bomber from New York City to South America, then across the Atlantic to Africa’s Sahara Desert and a temporary training camp in Tunisia. At last we crossed the Mediterranean to our tent camp among olive trees near Foggia, Italy. Five of those young men with me never returned home alive. Just two of us are still living.

My 32nd mission finally ended my Air Force career. Five miles above Vienna, Austria, on May 10, 1944, a German’s flak burst pulverized the right side of my face and destroyed my right eye. There was a long recovery, and for my actions that day, I was awarded the Sliver Star, the nation's third highest combat military decoration. Yet when I left the military at 20, I was still not old enough to vote or even buy a drink. I went on to college, got involved in wildlife and environmental work, and never wavered in my love of Wyoming, the West and the very planet itself.

So now, while I still have a voice to speak, I want to communicate a warning: I believe we are at a crossroads that puts our civilization at risk. If we do nothing to stop carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere, the Earth will face a future similar to that of Mars, becoming barren and lifeless.

When World War II was thrust on us, we turned our economic system into a war machine as every American agreed to sacrifice in order to defeat Nazi Germany and its allies. That is the model for what it will take to overcome what now threatens our planet.

Hitler and Tojo and Mussolini, however, were human beings with faces, while carbon dioxide is invisible and yet a part of our everyday environment. How can you overcome something you can’t see?

ABC journalist Bill Blakemore thinks one of the reasons Americans don’t -- or can’t -- accept the threat of climate change is because of the “unprecedented scale and complexity of the crisis of manmade global warming.” And he adds, “It’s new, and therefore unknown, at first. And we’re naturally frightened of the unknown.”

Yet Rob Watson, an environmentalist, likes to say: “Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics. That’s all she is. You cannot sweet-talk her. You cannot spin her. … Do not mess with Mother Nature. But that is just what we are doing.”

You only need a lick of sense to see that something is terribly wrong. Devastating events, attributable to climate change, are destroying people’s livelihoods and taking lives all around the world. Climate scientists tell us it is only going to get worse unless and until we do something about carbon.

To do something about carbon means reducing our dependence on coal and oil, and here in Wyoming, even talking about it is heresy. But we must begin to talk about it before it is too late, and then we must act.

What can we do? Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy-Progress Energy, the largest electric utility in the United States, said this September: “I believe eventually there will be regulation of carbon in this country.” James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, agrees. In fact, everyone concerned about climate change believes a carbon tax has advantages over every other approach. Still, every single carbon-tax bill introduced in Congress has failed.

I believe it is past time for all of us -- and especially those of us who live in Wyoming, where so much carbon is produced -- to face the hard truth. We don’t have a choice: We have to face this crisis as if we were at war, because, unfortunately, that is the bitter truth. We are in a fight for our very survival – and for the survival of the whole planet.

Tom Bell is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org), which he founded in 1970, in Lander, Wyoming, along with the Wyoming Outdoor Council. He lives in Lander.

]]>No publisherClimate ChangeWriters on the Range2012/09/28 01:00:00 GMT-6ArticleEra of the sage grouse is coming to an endhttps://www.hcn.org/wotr/14670
Tom Bell writes of his 70-year fascination with sage grouse, now on decline. Sage grouse were an important part of
this Wyoming ranch kid’s early life. My dad’s place
included a range of sage-covered hills, and on those hills and many
more between the ranch and foothills of the Wind River Mountain
Range, there were thousands of sage grouse we sometimes called sage
hens, or sage chickens.

The Mountain Range Ditch brought
irrigation water to my dad’s fields, separating the near
hills from the lush alfalfa fields and other hay meadows. As a boy
of eight or nine years old, I quickly learned that most of the sage
hens nested in that zone above the ditch and generally close to the
water. Once in a while I would find a nest some 50 to 150 yards
from water, but without exception, all of the hens and their nests
above the ditch were hidden in a clump of sagebrush.

I
learned to spot the hens without disturbing them, and on my
dad’s place there’d be 50 to 100 nests located along a
quarter-mile of ditch. Once my ranch chores were done, I was free
to roam. I found the grouse fascinating, and I’d watch for
signs of hatching. Seeing the chicks or hearing their cheeping
alerted me and I would back off. But I often hid a short distance
away.

I learned that healthy stands of a sagebrush
community include a mix of plants. It is in those healthy stands
that sage grouse chicks find the bugs (read protein), as well as
green vegetation, that chicks need to thrive and grow. But
sagebrush ecosystems are usually dry with sparse vegetation.
Irrigated fields produce a wealth of insects and lush, green
leaves. Sage grouse eat both, but until the ranchers and their
fields came along, the birds did not have access to such wonderful
food sources.

Sometimes I’d see things that
dismayed me. I’d watch a hen lead her brood of six to eight
or even nine fluffy little ones to the ditch. There she would jump
across and cluck for the chicks to follow. The yawning chasm of a
three-foot ditch struck fear into them, and they would cheep in
distress. Her calls would finally overcome the fears of some of
them, and they would try to flutter across.

Only the
strong would make it; the rest floated off down the ditch, to land
who knew where. Then she had a problem with chicks on either side.

I only saw that happen a few times and determined to do
something about it. My folks’ ranch house and barnyard was
about a quarter-mile away, so I went down, found some 8-to-10-inch
boards long enough to bridge the ditch, hauled them to the site and
put them across. Once I had the satisfaction of seeing one old
biddy lead her brood safely to the other side, I knew the bridges
would work.

It was the beginning of my lifelong love of
wild things. There was one other incident that so impressed me I
can picture it yet. One cold but sunny winter day, I was horseback
riding and entered a wide draw. As I rode through snow that was
almost 10 inches high, I noted a large, dark patch in the snowfield
ahead. I was puzzled, and as I rode on and neared the patch, it
suddenly lifted from the ground in a thunder of wings, and flew
away.

It was a great flock of sage grouse cocks, which I
estimated to number between 1,000 and 2,000 birds. Today, no sage
grouse live on that ranch or in those hills where I rode 70 years
ago. Encroaching civilization, housing developments, drought and
disease have all had their impact. Now, a new disease is killing
the birds — West Nile virus. What’s more, energy
exploration and development in critical sage grouse areas all over
Wyoming is helping to drive the grouse toward extinction.

That is already happening with a close relative called
Attwater’s prairie chicken. An estimated million birds had
been reduced to less than 9,000 birds by 1937. Now, only a few
— 10 cocks and 20 hens — are left on one small island
of prairie in Texas. The earliest colonists on the East Coast
wondered at the booming of strange birds — the heath hens.
The last heath hen cock died there in 1932. In the last 20 years,
researchers say sage grouse numbers have dropped by half.

The moral is yours to draw.

Tom Bell is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News
(hcn.org) which he founded in 1970. He lives and writes in Lander,
Wyoming.

]]>No publisherWildlifeBirdsWriters on the RangeEssaysArticleThe biggest environmental issue is staring us in the facehttps://www.hcn.org/wotr/14418
Tom Bell says we’d better connect the dots that reveal global warming. Who’s connecting the dots on
Spaceship Earth? Remember the dots of 9/11? They were all out
there, yet the best minds of our government’s intelligence
apparatus could not connect them. Too bad; a tragedy might have
been averted.

The dots on Spaceship Earth are accumulating
every day and represent a threat even greater than terrorism. It is
called global warming, and it portends disaster far greater for far
more people. Are we failing to take notice of them and ignoring the
warning signals that could save us?

Most folks with good
common sense look at the world, try to make sense of it and ask:
What’s going on? The dots are there but between manipulative
politicians, avaricious corporations and pseudo-scientists, the
public is more than slightly perplexed. What are they to believe
from the mixed signals they are receiving? Certainly, there is no
leadership coming from the highest echelons of our government. Some
lip service is given but nothing that deals with hard
reality.

The reality is that our environment is changing
all around us. All you have to do is look. In Wyoming, my favorite
trout fishing holes when I was a kid more than 50 years ago are now
filled with carp. The water has warmed, and the trout are leaving
or dying. In Oregon, trout researchers have documented the movement
of trout up to cooler waters at higher elevations.

The
little pika -- rock rabbit or cony -- as some call them, found only
in the higher elevations of the Rockies and in Asia, are losing
out. Research is indicating that they can’t stand the heat.
Evolved in the high, dry elevations, they aren’t adapting
fast enough and there is no place for them to go.

In the
tropics of Central America, researchers have found a shift of bird
life. Birds that once thrived in the trees at lower elevations have
moved to the mid-elevations; and birds that once flourished at
mid-level are being forced by rising temperatures to the highest
elevations. Those at the top have nowhere to go and are dying out.
As in the case of the pikas, a living organism that has evolved in
a particular ecosystem cannot readily and quickly adapt to the new
conditions, even if it is only a few degrees rise in
temperature.

How many of those subtle, and not so subtle,
changes are affecting us? The record heat wave which scorched
Europe in August 2003 killed an estimated 35,000 people. France
alone suffered 14,802 fatalities.

As I sit here in
central Wyoming, it seems a beautiful and peaceful place. But on
close examination, a grim scenario is playing out. Just as
climate-change scientists have predicted, there is an increase in
insects and disease. West Nile virus was unheard of in the United
States until 1999. In 2002, there were 4,165 cases of the disease
and 284 deaths. As of Sept. 16, six people have died in Wyoming --
one in my town of Lander.

Drought is in its fourth year
with no end in sight. To compound that problem, the Wind River
glaciers that provide much of the late-season water in the streams
are receding at an alarming rate. (So are most glaciers around the
world.) Dry rivers and raging forest fires are expected to be a
part of the future.

Ironically, Wyoming and the
West’s vast carbon fuel supply of coal, oil and natural gas
are contributing vast amounts of carbon dioxide to the greenhouse
effect of global warming. In addition, the search for and the
recovery of gas and oil is all but destroying many square miles of
open lands that wild animals need to survive.

A study done
by scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory earlier this year
concluded that huge reductions in fossil-fuel carbon emissions will
be required by the middle of this century. One of the authors, Atul
Jain, a professor of atmospheric sciences, said, "To reduce carbon
dioxide emissions and avoid dangerous interference with the climate
system, we must switch to alternative, carbon-free energy
sources."

The Union of Concerned Scientists has said, "We
believe that climate change represents the greatest environmental
challenge of the 21st century. It is the one environmental issue
that affects all others, one that casts a long shadow on the future
of our planet." Let’s hope it’s not too late to pay
attention.

Tom Bell is a contributor to Writers
on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). A former
wildlife biologist and rancher, he founded the newspaper in 1970,
in Lander, Wyoming, where he lives today.

]]>No publisherClimate ChangeWriters on the RangeEssaysArticleFarewell to Dave Lovehttps://www.hcn.org/issues/235/13425
HCN,

One of
the authentic icons of 20th century Wyoming and the West is gone.
Dr. J. David Love, known to many as a great geologist and to many
others as simply a friend, died Aug. 23 (HCN, 9/16/02: A legend of
the land). He was 89.

His humble beginnings as a
ranch boy in the isolated Muskrat Basin of central Wyoming belied
the towering scientific figure he was to become. When asked only
recently how it was that he became a geologist, he jokingly replied
that as a youngster in a land of rocks and vast landscape, "there
wasn't anything else to see where I was, except the rear end of a
cow 15 hours a day." He went on to attain three degrees in geology,
two from the University of Wyoming and the last a Ph.D. from Yale
University.

Dave, as most of his friends knew
him, was a classic, old-time field geologist. He learned the
intimate details of geology by walking the ground. There is no way
of knowing how many thousands of miles he covered, afoot or on
horseback, from plains to mountaintops. He knew Wyoming as no other
man knew it, and he developed an encyclopedic knowledge. He came to
know soils, toxic minerals such as selenium, and poisonous plants,
as well as geology.

Dave's knowledge of various
mineral deposits brought important economic benefits to Wyoming.
One of the accomplishments of which he was justly proud was an
exquisitely detailed geologic map of Wyoming, the first done in
1955 and a revision done in 1985. He generously gave me an
autographed copy of the latter, which hangs in the Wyoming Outdoor
Council office in Lander.

Dave's training as a
geologist - and geology's inclination toward the exploitation of
minerals for the needs of society - sometimes brought him
discomfort. He was the kind of man who loved the wild places whose
geology he explored, well aware that what he found might violate
the integrity of unspoiled land. Through it all, he always
respected the sanctity of natural creation.

Dr.
Love, as many people fondly remember him from memorable, roadside
geology trips, had a profound effect on many people. Throughout his
later years, he was invited to speak, or to lead show-me trips
investigating local geology. Those trips were cherished by the
folks who were fortunate enough to participate. His gentlemanly
manner and courtly grace endeared him to countless numbers of
admirers who, before they accompanied him on field trips, had no
idea of the wonders he revealed to them.

Margie
Rowell first met Dave and the Love family when they visited the Red
Bluffs Ranch southeast of Lander. That ranch had been the Gardiner
Mills Ranch, where Dave's mother, Ethel Waxham Love, had come to
teach the Mills children in 1905.

Margie was
living there, fresh from California and completely ignorant of
Wyoming geology. Like many others, she became completely enthralled
with the world around her because of Dave. As she says, "Dave Love
enriched my perception of Wyoming by putting everything in
Technicolor."

Dave and I never knew each other
until I began my environmental odyssey. I was some years his junior
but as I began to speak out on environmental matters, he took note,
and when we first met, he was sympathetic and
encouraging.

We shared somewhat similar boyhood
backgrounds, mine in the Great Depression days. My interest,
however, turned to plants and animals. When I returned from
military service, I finished my training in wildlife conservation
and game management at the University of
Wyoming.

A stint as a biologist with the Wyoming
Game and Fish Department took me all over Wyoming. I came to know
the state in a much broader sense, but my knowledge was never
comparable to Dave's. As a result, his wisdom and experience were
invaluable to me. He gave me insights and answered my questions so
that I could speak and write with more authority. We found we had
much in common and became fast friends.

Dave was
always supportive of my efforts, and when I launched High Country
News, he was there to help. Both of us loved Wyoming and the Red
Desert. How it was that we never discussed efforts to save some
part of the desert, I will never know. But both of us,
independently, made that effort. I think it may have been one of
the last regrets in leaving this old planet - that we are still
fighting an uphill battle to protect the majesty and mystique of
the Red Desert.

Dave will be greatly
missed.]]>No publisherLetter to the editorArticleHigh Countryhttps://www.hcn.org/issues/175/5686
In an early "High Country News" editorial, reprinted here,
Tom Bell took on then-Governor of Wyoming Stanley K.
Hathaway.Gov. Stanley K. Hathaway was criticized last week for siding with the mineral industry in Wyoming. It was not an unusual situation. I was doing the criticizing and he was doing the reacting.

The governor said of me, "He hasn't had anything good to say about this administration for six years." In which he was correct, for I have consistently tried to look down the road while he has opted for the short-term special interest. It has been so on grazing fees on the public lands, clear-cutting on national forests, special interests on the Game and Fish Commission, wilderness or no wilderness, special dispensation for air polluters and now strip mining. ...

I know Gov. Hathaway has acted at all times in what he thought was the best interest of the state. So have I. He, of course, has prevailed for he is governor while I have been teacher, environmentalist and editor.

But lowly though my position, I believe I have had some small influence, even on him. If he represented the people of Wyoming as they are, I like to think I represented the people as they may be. I think I speak for many who cannot speak for themselves. Some of them are yet unborn who will have to exist in a world which we made for them. If their lives are blighted by air they cannot breathe, water they cannot drink or land upon which they cannot exist, then I think we must take the blame. ...

Wyoming is a conservative state - sometimes too conservative for its own good in a fast-changing world. Many of us still believe a handshake and a word are as good as a written document. That won't do when you are dealing with an impersonal board room back in New York City, especially when the directors have to deal in turn with stockholders whose only interest is the dividend check.

I do not mean to be arrogant or egotistical when I call the governor's hand on some matter, though I am sure some believe so. I certainly have not become rich by my endeavors, and I believe I have as many enemies as friends.

Sorry to say to my detractors, so long as I live, I will continue to call the shots as I see them. I have been a maverick and a gadfly all my life, and like many Wyomingites, I am too old to change now.

Wyoming's illustrious
Senate president, Mr. Twiford of Douglas (HCN, 2/28/00: A prof
takes on the sacred cow), needs to creep out of his cave, somewhere
in the wilds of Converse County, and smell the roses. This is the
21st century, not the 1890s, and the times they are
a-changin'.

I flew with the 15th Air Force on
bombing missions all across Eastern Europe in World War II. We
would return to base and discuss how we would rejoice when all of
those countries would one day be set free. But we were disgusted,
dismayed and saddened when a tired, old, sick U.S. president handed
those countries over to another dictator. I never thought I would
live to see the day the Iron Curtain lifted and the Berlin Wall
came down.

I returned home from the service to
take up my studies at the University of Wyoming in the professional
course, Wildlife Conservation and Game Management. I received
Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science degrees. I particularly
wanted to become a big-game biologist. Therefore, I took as many
courses as I could to broadly prepare for what I wanted - geology,
soils, botany, poisonous range plants, range management, and
ecology, among others. But it was in the regular game-management
courses and the ecology classes that I learned something was
terribly wrong out there on the public lands.

I
was raised on a small farm-ranch near Lander in the Great
Depression, great drought days of the 1930s. I had seen firsthand
how ranchers who adjoined the public lands used them - including my
father and some of the neighbors. They didn't know any
better.

That experience and my training led me to
take the path that I did in trying to make some difference in
correcting some of the wrongs being perpetrated on the land.
Without having yet read Debra Donahue's book, The Western Range
Revisited, I would bet I could tell you what she related, with all
of the science now updated and recent. I commend her great effort
and scholarship. Thirty years ago, I was touching on the subject in
High Country News.

I have lightly skimmed her
book, but I paid particular attention to her bibliography, some 31
pages of citations. All of those trained professionals she cites to
back up her work can't be wrong. Now, with the science in hand, it
may be possible to open the dialogue on how to eventually
accomplish what she is suggesting. I look forward to reading and
studying her groundbreaking work.

It may appear
to be impossible at this point, but just read the various letters
to the editor and listen to the sad laments from so many of the old
guard. The old Republican-rancher establishment is
fearful.

I never thought I would live to see the
day when the stranglehold of the livestock industry on the public
grazing lands, and on Wyoming politics would be so challenged as it
is today. But I detect slight creakings of movement and hear the
gnashing of teeth as the moment of truth draws
closer.

There are many fine ranchers, most of
whom have realized the merits of good stewardship. It should be
obvious to all. But there are plenty more, too many, who have a
be-damned attitude and who resist any change. That tone was set by
the early big ranchers and it was passed down through the
generations. It became the "custom and culture," the Wyoming cowboy
tradition. Sadly, the good ranchers never speak out against the bad
eggs. It could be a philosophy of, if we don't hang together, we'll
all hang separately.

Wyoming's public lands were
claimed early on by those big stockmen who were on the ground first
as their turf. The stockmen of today still like to try to make the
same claim. Ella Watson, "Cattle Kate," and her husband, James
Averill, were not taken away and lynched because they were such
adept cattle rustlers. (The big cattlemen's own cowboys were much
better at it.) The ranchers wanted to send a message, to make a
point: "Don't mess with us on our turf."

Just
so, Twiford had no intention of doing away with the University of
Wyoming Law School. As a spokesman for the livestock industry, he
was making a point. The point was to crucify Debra Donahue in the
press, try to discredit her and her work, and to send a message to
the university: "Don't mess with us on our turf." The threats and
intimidation from the livestock industry are
obvious.

Western ranchers may be unwilling to
accept the inevitable - the challenge of change. But it is coming.
Back in 1968, a Western Resources Conference on "Public Land
Policy" was held in Fort Collins. One of the speakers, Lynton K.
Caldwell, spoke on "An Ecosystems Approach to Public Land Policy."
Thirty years later you heard more and more talk of the ecosystems
approach to public-land management. You heard it from Bruce Babbitt
and then Mike Dombeck and now, in effect, from Debra Donahue. It is
a concept whose time has come.

Caldwell said in
1968: "If present demographic projections are valid, the America of
the 21st century, and even before, will be politically dominated by
the residents of great cities. It is they whose beliefs and wishes
could reshape public policies toward land." We are seeing
it.

He also said, "Modern man in the aggregate
has not learned to perceive the world as a complex of dynamic
interrelated systems ... To conceive an ecosystems approach to
public-land policy one must have first arrived at an ecological
viewpoint from which pioneers, land speculators, farmers, miners,
stockmen, lawyers, bankers, or local government officials have
commonly seen the land ... Man's future is inextricably involved
with changes in the air, the water and the land, which are the
gross elements of the ecosphere ... This environment - the
ecosphere - is finite ... This is the paradigm of Spaceship Earth,
whose passengers are only now beginning to realize where they are."

As I write this, the Shuttle Spacecraft Endeavor
is returning to Earth. It is bringing back an incredible array of
the most comprehensive and accurate maps of our planet ever taken.
Undoubtedly, many of those photos will reveal to us the amount of
environmental damange we have inflicted on the only planet we know
which will support us and our profligate ways. Some will show the
effects of grazing-overgrazing. We should not ignore the
warnings.

Debra Donahue has done a credible,
scholarly work. It cannot be dismissed out of hand by the powers
that be, nor by the public. We are all owners of that public land
and we all, including our posterity, stand to gain or lose by what
happens to them. We owe Ms. Donahue a great debt of
gratitude.

Tom
BellLander,
Wyoming

Tom Bell began High
Country News in 1970; he continues to work on
environmental and historic preservation
issues.

]]>No publisherLetter to the editorArticleTom Bellhttps://www.hcn.org/issues/41/1247
Tom Bell calls the Altamont pipeline "a disgraceful
example of government integrity gone awry."Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue's feature story, HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again.

Tom Bell:

"The issue of the proposed Altamont natural gas pipeline being constructed through historic South Pass in Wyoming should be a case study in how government should not work. Thanks to rogue agencies and rogues within agencies, the laws, rules and regulations governing us all can be bent, twisted, ignored and violated. And thanks to big money and the quest for power, weak individuals can be bought. It leaves one with a sense of rottenness running through the core of our vaunted governmental institutions.

"To fully understand the Altamont issue you have to realize that Altamont money influenced the present outcome from top to bottom. It all began in the Bush administration under Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan and Bureau of Land Management Director Cy Jamison. It carried right on over to President Clinton and Secretary Babbitt. It went right down through the ranks from the Washington office to the Wyoming state BLM office in Cheyenne and to the Worland BLM district office.

"There were exceptions. The Rawlins district office and the Rock Springs district office and the two resource area offices within those districts, Lander and Green River, did not go along with the program. Neither did newly appointed BLM Director Jim Baca when he came aboard. It was Baca who finally gave the order for BLM to do a "second look" analysis. By the time the analysis was finished, Baca was gone and there was no one with the clout and backbone to see that the analysis was released to the public as a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.

"Instead, the Wyoming state office buried the true analysis and all of the significant findings, wrote its own document to fit the original EIS findings, and said the second look endorsed the South Pass proposed route. Nothing could be further from the truth. The true second-look analysis documented that the preferred route should be through Jeffrey City.

"Altamont said it would cost $40 million more to go the alternative Jeffrey City route and refused to consider it. This was in spite of the fact that the National Environmental Policy Act requires that decisions not be made on the basis of cost alone, and, in spite of the fact that the Rawlins BLM District pointed out that 60 percent of the archaeological survey work along the Jeffrey City route had already been done, thereby saving millions of dollars.

"It is ironic that when the BLM did the second-look analysis, it was found that just one small section of the proposed pipeline corridor beyond South Pass in the Farson area could cost an estimated $9.5 million-$10.5 million for archaeological work. The famed Blue Forest area west of Farson would require extensive work. Of course, Altamont could treat that area and the laws governing it as they have already treated all the laws, rules and regulations up to now - just ignore them and have government lackeys and politicians cover up.

"In order to understand how this Altamont mess came about, former Wyoming Gov. Mike Sullivan must be brought into the picture. Sullivan made no bones of the fact that he was a "friend of Bill's' and was the first governor to endorse Bill Clinton for president. He evidently had direct access into the Oval Office. Early on he threw in with the Altamont crowd and whatever Altamont wanted, they were to get. That order was evidently conveyed to Secretary Babbitt and Director Baca. Jim Baca's demise as BLM director may have been as much a result of his stand on the Altamont issue as it was of the so-called "War on the West," a fraudulent and hokey issue in its own right.

"Baca was the only bulwark between the field men who were trying to do the right thing and the political forces arrayed against them. The BLM state office crumbled and made no attempt to defend their own people. In fact, there was some fear for a time that the honest, conscientious employees were in jeopardy.

"Nowhere in all of my experience with various issues have I experienced anything so outrageous, so contemptible, as the Altamont project. The company officials, a former state governor, paid consultants and hirelings, and stooges within the federal government have all perjured themselves, winked at existing law, and prostituted themselves before the shrine of greed and money.

"It is not at all difficult to see and experience the rising tide of disenchantment with federal government policies and actions. The vast majority of public employees are honest, conscientious, and capable, trying to do the right thing in a professional manner. We should defend them. Some fall into bureaucratic ways and work at cross purposes - but most are honest. In this case, the honest employees were made to look like bumbling fools because of behind-the-scenes maneuvering and deliberate obfuscations on the part of those whose personal interests are served.

"Altogether, the Altamont issue is a disgraceful example of government integrity gone awry. We expect the federal government to do the right thing, both for the public it is supposed to serve and for its own dedicated employees. That has not been the case here. It is a good example of why many people have come to feel they can no longer trust their government. It is a sad and troubling commentary on the times." ]]>No publisherEnergy & Industry1995/04/21 00:00:00 GMT-6ArticleTourism beats logging in Wyominghttps://www.hcn.org/issues/20.19/tourism-beat-logging-in-wyoming
In theory, every U.S. citizen has an equal say in the management of public lands. In fact, residents of small towns dotted across the rural West exert a disproportionate control over those lands. In theory, every U.S. citizen has an equal say in the management of public lands. In fact, residents of small towns dotted across the rural West exert a disproportionate control over those lands. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/20.19/download-entire-issue]]>No publisherArchive1988/10/10 11:55:00 GMT-6ArticleTaking the broad geographical viewhttps://www.hcn.org/issues/16.9/taking-the-borad-geographical-view
Tom Bell reflects on HCN's move from Lander, Wyo. to Paonia, Colo., saying that HCN is a useful voice, still needed, wherever it's situated.Tom Bell reflects on HCN's move from Lander, Wyo. to Paonia, Colo., saying that HCN is a useful voice, still needed, wherever it's situated. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/16.9/download-entire-issue]]>No publisherWriters on the RangeArchive1984/05/14 14:05:00 GMT-6ArticleCoal shifts to Westhttps://www.hcn.org/issues/6.15/coal-shifts-to-west
A curious thing is happening on the way to energy independence: an east-to-west shift in coal production is actually going to be putting western coal into power plants in West Virginia and Ohio.A curious thing is happening on the way to energy independence: an east-to-west shift in coal production is actually going to be putting western coal into power plants in West Virginia and Ohio. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/6.15/download-entire-issue]]>No publisherArchive1974/07/19 00:00:00 GMT-6ArticleIt's chicken power tomorrowhttps://www.hcn.org/issues/6.16-1/its-chicken-power-tomorrow
Digesting human, animal and vegetable wastes to produce methane is sure to become and important source of energy in the future.Digesting human, animal and vegetable wastes to produce methane is sure to become and important source of energy in the future. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/6.16-1/download-entire-issue]]>No publisherArchive1974/06/21 00:00:00 GMT-6ArticleWater dictates Western futurehttps://www.hcn.org/issues/6.10/water-dictates-western-future
Water -- the lack of it and the need for it -- looms ever larger in the West's developing energy situation. Water is used in huge amounts to generate electricity in coal-fired plants, to gasify coal, to liquify coal, and to develop oil shale.Water -- the lack of it and the need for it -- looms ever larger in the West's developing energy situation. Water is used in huge amounts to generate electricity in coal-fired plants, to gasify coal, to liquify coal, and to develop oil shale. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/6.10/download-entire-issue]]>No publisherArchive1974/05/10 00:00:00 GMT-6ArticleLost -- a chance to be differenthttps://www.hcn.org/issues/6.9/lost-a-chance-to-be-different
The re-design and re-building of the Wyoming Governor's mansion was a chance to celebrate energy efficiency and alternative energy, but the selection panel chose the conventional option.The re-design and re-building of the Wyoming Governor's mansion was a chance to celebrate energy efficiency and alternative energy, but the selection panel chose the conventional option. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/6.9/download-entire-issue]]>No publisherArchive1974/04/26 00:00:00 GMT-6ArticleThe crisis in energy: Water comes up shorthttps://www.hcn.org/issues/5.23/the-crisis-in-energy-water-comes-up-short
In Wyoming and eastern Montana, plans for harnessing the Powder River Basin's coal to ease the energy crisis are running into the realities of limited water supply.In Wyoming and eastern Montana, plans for harnessing the Powder River Basin's coal to ease the energy crisis are running into the realities of limited water supply. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/5.23/download-entire-issue]]>No publisherArchive1973/11/23 01:00:00 GMT-6ArticleBlack clouds gatherhttps://www.hcn.org/issues/5.21/black-clouds-gather
As the energy crisis deepens, the clear skies of Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains are threatened by the extraction of vast deposits of coal.As the energy crisis deepens, the clear skies of Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains are threatened by the extraction of vast deposits of coal. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/5.21/download-entire-issue]]>No publisherArchive1973/10/26 00:00:00 GMT-6Article